Tob

Here are three alternatives you might be interested in: Chalkbox. This is a lightweight tool for writing on any Windows background or on emty sheets. It works with any kind of touch device and is freeware. Habilience Windows Journal is not freeware but comes with Windows since Windows XP: Windows Journal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia MS Paint is another tool coming already with Windows. It has a lot more features including finger drawing mith multitouch since Windows Vista. While this is not the best option for writing it is great for drawing with the finger.

In the past I had similar problems with Smart Notebook 10. Back then Notebook tried to connect secretly to a server from Smart in order check if the software is used with a valid activation. This failed because we used some child protection software which blocked this connection. Someone from Smart told me back then, this validation check will be gone as soon as Notebook will use watermaks on computers not connected with a Smart Board. Our school stopped using Smart Notebook a year ago (we switched to Easiteach NG). Because of this I am not sure, if this problem still exists with current versions. But you might want to try out to disable your firewall/child protection software/external dns service and check if this "solves" your problem.

Well, a little bit more of your cynism and it will probably also never happen again (-; But seriously, I also wrote about Easiteachs unusual interface, anoying bugs and a glas-modus-tool which should better be replaced by a freeware alternative. And probably I did all this in a rather bad English since I am not a native speaker. Does all this fit to your accusation/cynism?

Localzuk, indeed, the interface is unusual in design and usability. But once you get used to it, it is not great but ok. Conversion of notebook files works better since version 1.5. In case you checked with an older version you might want to check again. Still the import filter is only good enough to make the content of the notebook file available in Easiteach. In most cases you still have to change little things like font sizes etc. Some flash objects from Smart aren't compatible because they check in which software they got opened and refuse to work. The same is true with some widgets from Smart Notebook 11. I recommend my colleagues to open their old Notebook files at http://express.smarttech.com as long as they don't need them on a regular basic. About costs: It all depends on the scenario. My school has only 8 Smart Boards but 30 iwbs from another brand. The company we bought the non-smart iwbs from gave us 5 user licences for each IWB we bought and also a site licence for deploying of Easiteach over the school network. All licences are permanent and were included in the total costs of the boards.

I use Easiteach as a teacher on a daily basic. I am also a teacher trainer for teaching with software at my school. Regarding features I don't hesitate to recommend Easiteach as a cheap alternative to Smart Notebook or Promethean Inspire but without limitations to any hardware brand. Easiteach has a much less used community platform (http://www.easilearn.com) than Smart, but loaded a lot of readymade content for free on it. A comparison of features is available here: http://www.teachertechnologies.com/comparing-smart-promethean-and-easiteachs-software-the-table/ This comparison doesn't include latest improvements in Easiteach NG, like the possibility to import Smart Notebook files. However, interface and usability is unusual. Teachers who are already trained to work with Smart Notebook might need extra training to understand the concept of Easiteach. Once this is done, you can do great things with Easiteach. Regarding Easiteachs Glasmodus-Tool (a tool to write on any screen, similar to Smart Notebook 10) I recommend to use Chalkbox instead, which is a freeware alternative working with any touchable device and is much more convenient to use (http://www.habilience.com/product_chalkbox/). With Windows 8 and multitouch we have two issues currently: - A single touch is often interpreted as a double touch, which makes it a little inconvenient (but not impossible) to select objects. This bug doesn't appear with single touch boards or older versions of Windows. This bug is reported and will hopefully be solved with the next version of Easiteach. - Easiteach doesn't have an option to lock an object in a way to move it in any direction on the one hand but without allowing to change its size on the other hand. This didn't matter in the past, since changing size wasn't possible in presentation mode and only here it would be necessary to lock size changing. However, in newer versions of Easiteach you can change size using multitouch gestures - which is a bug or inconsistent with Easiteachs general idea what the presentation modus is about. This bug is reported too. Regarding costs I will write under localzuks comment from today.

Why doesn't anybody seriously consider switching to Easiteach NG? It improved a lot the last two years. It can import Smart Notebook files, i is available for site licensing and has features comparable with Smart Notebook. My school just switched and don't regret it. However, I should mention that Easiteach NG has some annoying but not crucial issues with multi touch, especially with Windows 8. If anybody is interested I can write more about it.